A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Robb … and Brynden. Your brother is here as well, my lord.”
    â€œHim.” Her father’s voice was a faint whisper. “The Blackfish … came back? From the Vale?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd Lysa?” A cool wind moved through his thin white hair. “Gods be good, your sister … did she come as well?”
    He sounded so full of hope and yearning that it was hard to tell the truth. “No. I’m sorry …”
    â€œOh.” His face fell, and some light went out of his eyes. “I’d hoped … I would have liked to see her, before …”
    â€œShe’s with her son, in the Eyrie.”
    Lord Hoster gave a weary nod. “Lord Robert now, poor Arryn’s gone … I remember … why did she not come with you?”
    â€œShe is frightened, my lord. In the Eyrie she feels safe.” She kissed his wrinkled brow. “Robb will be waiting. Will you see him? And Brynden?”
    â€œYour son,” he whispered. “Yes. Cat’s child … he had my eyes, I remember. When he was born. Bring him … yes.”
    â€œAnd your brother?”
    Her father glanced out over the rivers. “Blackfish,” he said. “Has he wed yet? Taken some … girl to wife?”
    Even on his deathbed
, Catelyn thought sadly. “He has not wed. You know that, Father. Nor will he ever.”
    â€œI told him … 
commanded
him. Marry! I was his lord. He knows. My right, to make his match. A good match. A Redwyne. Old House. Sweet girl, pretty … freckles … Bethany, yes. Poor child. Still waiting. Yes. Still …”
    â€œBethany Redwyne wed Lord Rowan years ago,” Catelyn reminded him. “She has three children by him.”
    â€œEven so,” Lord Hoster muttered. “Even so. Spit on the girl. The Redwynes. Spit on
me
. His lord, his brother … that Blackfish. I had other offers. Lord Bracken’s girl. Walder Frey … any of three, he said … Has he wed? Anyone? Anyone?”
    â€œNo one,” Catelyn said, “yet he has come many leagues to see you, fighting his way back to Riverrun. I would not be here now, if Ser Brynden had not helped us.”
    â€œHe was ever a warrior,” her father husked. “That he could do. Knight of the Gate, yes.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, inutterably weary. “Send him. Later. I’ll sleep now. Too sick to fight. Send him up later, the Blackfish …”
    Catelyn kissed him gently, smoothed his hair, and left him there in the shade of his keep, with his rivers flowing beneath. He was asleep before she left the solar.
    When she returned to the lower bailey, Ser Brynden Tully stood on the water stairs with wet boots, talking with the captain of Riverrun’s guards. He came to her at once. “Is he—?”
    â€œDying,” she said. “As we feared.”
    Her uncle’s craggy face showed his pain plain. He ran his fingers through his thick grey hair. “Will he see me?”
    She nodded. “He says he is too sick to fight.”
    Brynden Blackfish chuckled. “I am too old a soldier to believe that. Hoster will be chiding me about the Redwyne girl even as we light his funeral pyre, damn his bones.”
    Catelyn smiled, knowing it was true. “I do not see Robb.”
    â€œHe went with Greyjoy to the hall, I believe.”
    Theon Greyjoy was seated on a bench in Riverrun’s Great Hall, enjoying a horn of ale and regaling her father’s garrison with an account of the slaughter in the Whispering Wood. “Some tried to flee, but we’d pinched the valley shut at both ends, and we rode out of the darkness with sword and lance. The Lannisters must have thought the Others themselves were on them when that wolf of Robb’s got in among them. I saw him tear one man’s arm from his shoulder, and their horses went mad at the scent of him. I couldn’t tell you how many men were thrown—”
    â€œTheon,” she interrupted, “where might I find my son?”
    â€œLord Robb went to visit the godswood, my lady.”
    It was what Ned would have done.
He is his father’s son as much as mine, I must remember. Oh, gods, Ned …
    She found Robb beneath the green canopy of leaves, surrounded by tall redwoods and great old elms, kneeling before the heart tree, a